"It was my intention to revitalize this ailing tradition by drafting young and attractive actors." -- Kenneth Pai, on Kun opera and "The Peony Pavilion." Photo courtesy of Cal Performances

"It was my intention to revitalize this ailing tradition by drafting young and attractive actors." -- Kenneth Pai, on Kun opera and "The Peony Pavilion." Photo courtesy of Cal Performances

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400-year-old 'Peony' Blooms in Berkeley

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Before you try to single-handedly revitalize a great and long-neglected cultural tradition, you might want to talk to Kenneth Pai.

An acclaimed Taiwanese author and retired UC Santa Barbara professor, Pai was all too aware that young people today didn't know, or care to know, the first thing about Chinese Kun opera, or Kunqu (pronounced "kwun chyu"). Even Chinese audiences were more likely to be familiar with the younger, more acrobatic Peking opera than its refined, lyrical ancestor.

But rather than bemoan the flashy tastes of kids today, Pai opted to do something about it. He took on the huge job of creating a new adaptation of Tang Xianzu's classic 1598 Kun opera "The Peony Pavilion," a passionate paean to romantic love that happened to be written at a time of strict Confucian orthodoxy (and, coincidentally, just a couple of years after "Romeo and Juliet"). Du Liniang, a 16-year-old girl, dreams of a handsome scholar, dies of longing for him and is buried under a plum tree. Scholar Liu Mengmei finds her portrait, falls in love with it and is determined to be united with his true love, never mind that she's already dead and buried. You could say the story's just getting started at that point, but in a traditional staging you might already be eight or nine hours in.

"In those days, during the Ming and Qing dynasties, the aristocracy and the very rich had a lot of leisure time," Pai says. "They loved to throw parties that would sometimes last a month, and they would watch Kun opera just like a soap opera today, one or two acts a day. It would go on and on and on and on for a whole month."

Pai trimmed the 55-scene, 20-hour opera to 27 scenes running nine hours over the course of three nights. He handpicked two age-appropriate actors to play the young lovers, parts that nowadays are more likely to be played by sexagenarian veterans of the form, and hired great masters to train them for the roles.

"I saw the crisis of Kun opera, because the actors are aging, and there's a break between generations because of the Great Cultural Revolution," Pai says. "There's a sense of urgency to train the younger generation of actors to continue this tradition. Also, the younger generation of audiences in China has been alienated and disconnected from their traditional culture in general and traditional drama in particular. So it was my intention to revitalize this ailing tradition by drafting young and attractive actors to perform such a beautiful, romantic story to attract the younger generation."

That's a lot to ask of one production, even one that would tour extensively from Shanghai to Macao to Beijing after its world premiere in Taipei in April 2004. And it's certainly a lot for one person to tackle as writer and producer.

"I would have backed out if I had known how difficult it would be," Pai says. "Fortunately, I drafted all the top artists -- most of them are my friends -- and, interestingly, this is a joint project of Taiwan and China, which is rare. Forget about the politics. This is something for our ancestors, so we work together."

Known as "the mother of 100 operas," Kunqu developed more than 500 years ago in the Kunshan area of eastern China and is still performed in the Kunshan dialect. It's far older than the now better known Peking opera and was the dominant performing art form of the Ming and Qing dynasties, when rich and prominent families boasted their own Kunqu troupes and competed for status. It's been in decline since the late Qing, around the 19th century, when imperial patronage turned to the newer form of Peking opera, but it was nearly, and quite deliberately, eradicated under the Maoism of the 1960s.

"It barely recovered from the devastation of the Great Cultural Revolution," Pai says. "All traditional drama was banned for 10 years, except the eight model operas of Jiang Qing. The actors were sent out for labor reform, and they were not allowed to sing. But when they were working in the fields, they started to practice Kun opera. They jotted down the lyrics from their memory and hid them somewhere. And after the Great Cultural Revolution, one by one they all came back."

Born on the mainland, Pai first encountered "The Peony Pavilion" in 1946 at age 10, two years before his family moved to Hong Kong and later to Taiwan. The great Chinese opera actor Mei Lan-Fang, who specialized in female roles, came back to Shanghai from Hong Kong after the Sino-Japanese War and gave a performance that Pai attended with his mother.

"It just happened that night Mei Lan-Fang performed 'Interrupted Dream,' a scene from 'Peony Pavilion,' " Pai says. "Of course, I didn't understand anything. Ever since then it's been an obsession for me."

Though Pai's is a traditional staging -- the point is to preserve the tradition, after all -- he made some tweaks to increase its appeal to a modern audience. Some of it is as simple as using modern lighting instead of candles, or calligraphy in the background to accent the nearly bare stage. But the main thing was to have in the major roles actors who didn't require too much suspension of disbelief. He selected Shen Fengying and Yu Jiulin of the Suzhou Kun Opera Theater and put them through a year of rigorous training at the hands of Kunqu masters Zhang Jiqing and Wang Shiyu, who doubled as artistic and production directors.

" 'Peony Pavilion' celebrates beauty, and life," Pai says. "It's young love. So it was my intent to get two young, talented, attractive actors that would conform to the image of the original text. For the veteran audience, we know how to appreciate the skill of the old masters. For the younger generation who have never seen Kun opera before, to have a 60-year-old master play a 16-year-old is hard to accept."

If that sounds as if it might be a shocking break with tradition, well, traditions change.

"During the Ming or Qing dynasties, the actors were in their teens," Pai says. "So actually, I tried to revive the tradition. But we do try to link the past with the present. This play is 400 years old. How to put it on a 21st century stage and make it shine is the greatest challenge."

It's a challenge to which this "Young Lovers' Edition" seems to have risen admirably. It's already played to sold-out crowds throughout the Chinese-speaking world, and now that it's making its U.S. premiere at UC Berkeley's Zellerbach Hall next week, Cal is offering a class on Kun opera this fall, which Pai says is the first on an American campus.

Like "The Peony Pavilion" itself, Pai's romance with Kunqu may be another love story that ends happily with a resurrection.